


these violent delights (these soft dreaming futures)

by mouseymightymarvellous



Series: tales of gutsy shinobi [9]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Unrequited Love, it's a grab bag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-03-07 21:05:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 6,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18881242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mouseymightymarvellous/pseuds/mouseymightymarvellous
Summary: They're all just blades in the night: weapons in the hands of legacy and destiny and loyalty. And yet, over and over again, they dare to reach out with upturned palms in the hopes of something a little brighter, a little duller, a little sweeter.Yet another multi-pairing, multi-theme oneshot collection.





	1. the only demons here are you (sakura/hinata)

**Author's Note:**

> Reservoir for the various pairings I have written for Tumblr prompt fills.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata has grown and blossomed under Kurenai's careful tending, Shino and Kiba at her sides. To be kunoichi is to walk through the world with your head held high, blades hidden in your painted smile.
> 
> But, as anyone who has ever met her knows, she is sure, Hinata has never been much of a shinobi.
> 
> (Sakura laughs with her throat bared and poison rising in her eyes, enough to make you forget about the scars left across her palms for being twelve and silly and a girl.)

To her father’s despair, Hinata has always been a dreamer.

In her heart of hearts, she wants to believe that kindness is rewarded, that good wins the day.

Hinata keeps her heart of hearts wrapped up in the last remembered scraps of her mother’s perfume and the sound of Shino’s laughter and the brightness of Kiba’s grin: the only substances in the world strong enough to protect it.

Hinata has been in love with Naruto since the first time she saw him wipe the blood from his chin and stand back up.

If only she could be so brave.

Maybe, in loving Naruto, Hinata could learn some of that bravery.

(She loves her father and tries to learn his adherence to the rules. She loves her sister and tries to learn her unshaken confidence. She loves her cousin and tries to learn his determined perfection.)

(It doesn’t work.)

(She’s only ever Hinata. She’s only ever a failure.)

(She stands back up.)

 

 

Magazine covers and shop windows and the curl of Ino’s smile as she bats her eyelashes all tell Hinata that boys like sunshine don’t wake up one morning to recognize girls like cloudy nights through mountain passes.

Not without help.

Hinata grits her teeth as she stands in the changing room.

Her fingers are carving bloody crescents into her biceps as she tries to clutch herself closer.

She doesn’t want to let her arms down.

But Tenten and Ino are giggling on the other side of the door, marvelling over the colour of the dress Tenten was so happy to try on, and Hinata cannot hide forever.

A sudden knock startles her, and Hinata spins, hands out, ready for an attack.

“Hinata-chan?” asks Sakura-san from the other side of the door. “Do you need help with the zipper?”

Hinata’s shoulders curve.

She wishes she still had long hair to hide behind, but she cut it again weeks ago.

If she looks back, all she’ll see is skin, and she’s shivering for it.

She’s a coward.

It’s just skin.

“Hinata-chan?” Sakura-san asks again.

Hinata tries to answer, but the words get caught in her throat.

If she opens her mouth, she doesn’t know what words will come out given the way the sounds are writhing under her tongue.

“Hinata-chan,” Sakura-san says, “do you want me to come in instead of you coming out?”

Her voice is so soft, Sakura-san. Soft and aching and knowing.

It crawls under Hinata’s skin, itching. She wants to claw it out.

She wants to run.

She wants to be wrapped up in one of her familiar sweaters, sandwiched between Shino and Kiba, Akamaru sprawled across their laps, the world close and quiet and safe.

Hinata takes a breath and opens the changing room door a crack.

“Yes, please,” she whispers.

Like the wind, Sakura-san slips through.

“Are you ok?”

No. Hinata is not ok.

Because Hinata is a fool and a coward and—

It’s just a dress.

“You don’t have to buy it, Hinata-chan. You don’t have to buy anything or wear anything or do anything. Not if it makes you uncomfortable.”

Hinata hadn’t realized she was staring at a corner of the small space where wall meets mirror until all she can see is green, green, green.

You could drown in those eyes.

You could rest.

“Don’t worry, Hinata-chan, I’ll make sure Ino and Tenten are distracted so that they don’t say anything. You just change back into your clothes.”

Sakura-chan winks.

And then she’s gone.

And the small space is suddenly too large.

Hinata feels weightless and untethered.

The skin of her back burns.

She blinks, and shuffles back into her sweater.

 

 

Sakura-san walks Hinata home.

She doesn’t understand why.

“Hey, Hinata-chan,” Sakura-san says when they’ve been standing at the entrance to the Hyūga compound a beat too long, “you don’t have to change who you are, y’know. Who you are is already amazing.”

And then she smiles.

Sakura-san smiles like moonlight breaking on a still pond.

Hinata can’t breathe.

“I’ll see you around,” Sakura-san says, still smiling, and touches Hinata briefly on the hand.

And she’s gone, walking away.

Something in Hinata’s chest trembles.

Oh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Who you are is already amazing, for Femslash February 2018.


	2. the happiest we ever were (yamato/anko)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #let anko and yams go on a revenge tour 20always

Yamato barely tackles her to the ground, getting a thick web of roots around them, before the shockwave hits them.

For a moment, they lay stunned, together, and then Anko is shaking under him, ragged gasps cut out of her and Yamato is clawing at her clothing trying to figure out where she was hit because, oh gods, he wasn’t fast enough, she’s hurt, she’s going to die under him, die and leave her blood on his hands and they were so close—

His hands are pulling her jacket up and away, baring scar-riddled skin and mesh, and where is it where is it where is—

Anko threads her fingers through his hair, yanks him down to her, and kisses him.

Yamato’s hands freeze and all his worries fall silent.

Under him, into him, Anko is laughing.

It’s wild and fierce, rock slides and volcanic eruptions and hot peppers and venom, and it’s the most joyous thing he’s ever heard, ever tasted.

“Did you see that fucking explosion?” she demands, eyes bright, grinning up at him.

“The blast radius was bigger than we planned,” Yamato says. “I must have miscalculated.”

Anko shrugs and shifts Yamato by the hips, pulling him to balance more securely across her thighs. “Yeah. I added a few extra explosive tags.”

“You…” Yamato sighs. “Of course you did. You couldn’t have warned me? I almost didn’t get the barrier up in time.”

Around them, sunlight and smoke drift through holes punched through the weave of branches and roots.

“I trust your reflexes. And I wanted a good ending to this.”

Yamato stills further.

Anko ignores him and keeps talking, undeterred. “And I sure got one: you get frisky when you’re worried, Yams.”

“I was checking to make sure you didn’t get shrapnel through your stomach.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure,” Anko says, pulling him back down to her. “That’s what all the kids are calling it these days.”

Behind them, yet another Grass base is burning, purple smoke and despair wafting up from the wreckage, the crumbling foundation drenched with the blood of too many children who never stood a chance.

But under him, firm and warm, scar-strewn and laughing, is Anko.

They’re alive.

They made it.

It’s not over, Yamato knows as he surrenders to her mouth, but maybe this is a start for a new beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Things you said when we were the happiest we ever were.
> 
> _Kakashi probably took one look at how committed Anko was to burning Otō to the ground and sicced Yamato on her to babysit. Two years later and multiple forest fires, Kakashi is crying about all the work Konoha’s new foster system is: kids with engineered super powers are so hard to handle. He regrets everything, especially when he has to be best man at their wedding._


	3. on top of the world (naruto/shisui)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The future awaits you. Just close your eyes and wish.

“And there.” Shisui finishes settling the robes across Naruto’s shoulders and steps back.

He’s—

“Aw, Shisui,” Naruto rushes forward, throwing his arms around him and pulling him close.

Shisui’s nose burrows into the heavy folds of the robes.

“Why are you crying?” Naruto demands, half worried, half amused.

Shisui sniffs. It’s only a little bit obnoxious. “It’s just—” he mumbles, but then stops and pulls back to look Naruto in the face, continuing on with a stronger voice. “All your dreams are coming true and I’m so happy for you.”

The smile that splinters across Naruto’s face brings tears to his eyes.

This time, he lunges forward to bury his own face in Shisui’s chest.

Just for a moment.

(Distantly, Naruto realizes he’s trembling.)

When he’s collected himself he noses up the length of Shisui’s neck and presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw.

Shisui’s hands clench, pulling at the robe.

Naruto puts a hand to Shisui’s cheek, the metal band on his finger a cold shock.

“Yeah,” Naruto says, looking at the love of his life. “All my dreams are coming true, -ttebayo.”

Shisui laughs, wet and bright, and behind them, spread out at the base of the tower, crowds are cheering, and the future waits with hushed breath.

“Wish me luck?”

Shisui shakes his head. “You’ve never needed it. You’ve only ever needed to be you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Things you said when we were on top of the world.


	4. under the stars (obito/rin)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've never needed words, Obito lies to himself. What has been left unsaid is enough. (He's long forgotten by now what it is to look truth in the face.)

The dew is heavy, but Obito can’t feel it through his thick cloak.

When he exhales, his breath turns foggy condensation, blotting out the stars and the moon, turning the world to grey haze.

He closes his eye against it: the bright unblinking lights up above shining through.

“Are you cold?” he whispers.

Rin doesn’t answer, but the grass shifts in a shrug.

“Then let’s just stay here. Just stay here, with me.”

They lay together, even as the dew eventually creeps through, stars and water chilling them to the bone.

Obito doesn’t dare move. He barely dares breathe.

Rin is here, with him, and that’s the only thing he’ll ever ask for.

He closes his eyes.

“I love you.”

Rin doesn’t say anything back, but she doesn’t need to.

Obito knows.

When he opens them, colour is spilling over the horizon like so many cracked hearts bleeding.

The dew is melting away, and Rin is no where to be found.

Obito stands and shakes out his cloak.

The red clouds dance, and then he’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Things you said under the stars and in the grass.


	5. when you were crying (naruto/shikamaru)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, you get the endings you don't deserve. The world isn't fair, not to liars and murderers and thieves, but sometimes you get happiness after all.

 

Most everyone’s eyes are on the brides as they exchange vows and Shikamaru is so happy for Ino and Sakura, so happy that they finally made it here, after everything, but the only thing he can see is Naruto standing across from him, at Sakura’s side, practically bouncing with joy.

Bright enough to outshine the sun.

It’s a wonder anyone can see anything else through his brilliance.

Ino slips Sakura’s ring into place with what should be an audible thunk, the future aligning perfectly, and—without waiting for the officiant—dips Sakura into a kiss.

Naruto woops.

Tsunade-sama whistles.

The crowd cheers.

Finally, Shikamaru’s gaze slips to his friends, all entwined, their kiss smothered by their laughter, a mess of grins.

Yeah.

They’ve made it.

 

 

 

 

“It’s just,” Shikamaru sobs into Naruto’s shoulder, “they made it! After Ino thought forever that Sakura wouldn’t love her like that and the war and everything! And they’re so happy!”

Naruto’s shoulder shakes under his cheek.

“I’m so happy for them!” Shikamaru insists further, worried that Naruto doesn’t understand.

Naruto needs to understand.

“So. Happy!”

Naruto reaches out, but Shikamaru pulls his drink out of the way.

Ha!

Except, oh no, he’s spilled.

Oh well.

Tsunade-sama was very generous, paying for an open bar.

“I know, Shikamaru. They’re very happy. I see it.”

“I wanna,” Shikamaru declares, sitting up abruptly to stare Naruto in the face.

Naruto is very close.

His eyes are very blue.

Like bright spring skies burning.

Or the colour of the blanket that decorated his childhood bed.

“I wanna be that happy,” Shikamaru declares again, this time with a nod.

(Naruto pulls away, ducking away from Shikamaru’s forehead, ensuring they don’t collide.)

“We should be that happy,” he continues, undaunted. “We should! Naruto!”

“Yes, Shikamaru.”

Shikamaru fumbles through his pockets.

“Babe?” Naruto asks, hands hovering.

Shikamaru swats him away, and— There!

Aha!

He pulls the box out of his pocket.

“Naruto!”

Naruto’s eyes are going blurry.

Shikamaru squints.

They’re tears.

“Naruto!” he says, grasping for Naruto’s chin. “We should be that happy, Naruto. You make me that happy. We should be happy together, forever.”

Naruto nods. Shikamaru lets his hand fall away from his chin. He needs all his concentration on his words.

Besides, Naruto isn’t looking away.

“Be happy with me?” Shikamaru asks, softly, and flips the box open.

Naruto bursts into tears.

They taste like sunshine.

 

 

 

 

“Man,” Ino says. “You and Naruto managed to outcry both my mom and Sakura’s dad.”

Shikamaru ignores her.

Ino hits him over the head.

“Also, way to steal our thunder, asshole. I’m expecting an awesome first anniversary gift.”

“Ino,” Shikamaru says patiently, “I’m fairly certain the only person who is supposed to buy you anniversary gifts is your spouse.”

Ino shrugs. “Consider it a thank you gift, then.”

Shikamaru could make a fuss about Ino’s ridiculousness.

But.

Well.

She did help him pick out the ring.

(One day, he’ll get the story of how, exactly, she got Naruto’s ring size when Naruto has never worn another ring in his life.

Ino, for her part, isn’t telling.

And Naruto isn’t either.

Which probably means it’ll make for excellent blackmail when he gets the story.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Things you said when you were crying.


	6. when you were drunk (madara/kakashi)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> None of us get out of life alive.

 

Madara has been busy all evening, keeping his temper and playing at being Hashirama’s leashed demon.

It’s all politics, of course.

A polite fiction.

But, needs must. (And all shinobi know that thebest lie is simply the truth, misdirected.)

He wasn’t disappointed that Kakashi had drifted to the corners of the party, as much smoke and shadow as he is flesh and bone.

(You could make an argument for preserving the timeline, but damn the timeline, they’ve changed everything already. This is just Kakashi being himself, shying from spotlights and lingering in the darkest crevices, like mushrooms or a blind thing with too many teeth.)

Madara is free, finally, of his duties, and circles the perimeter, not stopping to chat, hyper focussed on the not-taste of the flicker of Kakashi’s chakra threaded through the room, and out.

When he finds him, Kakashi is slunk most of the way down a chair, his hair in even greater disarray than usual, a mess of bottles strewn around him.

Madara would berate him—it’s Konoha, but not even the village is guaranteed safety (the past few years have proven that, if anything)—but for the wicked genjutsu trap Kakashi had left on the room, invisible to most anyone who doesn’t possess the Sharingan.

Still, it’s unwise to drink alone, let alone get as sloppy drunk as Kakashi is right now. Not that it would be obvious to most; even wasted, it’s only the boneless slump and the ever so glassy eyes and the delayed kunai toss that betray him.

“Oh,” Kakashi says. “It’s you.”

He’s only barely slurring, but it’s as loud as a thunderclap to Madara. Kakashi sounds raw and vulnerable and Madara wants to strip the weakness from him, wants to wrap him up close where nothing can touch him that is not Madara’s skin, Madara’s voice, Madara’s soul. (Somewhere right under his ribcage, tucked up close, would be perfect.) But that’s not a feasible option.

Madara perches on the edge of the table instead and threads a hand through Kakashi’s hair to cup the back of his neck.

And waits.

“You should go,” Kakashi says, and Madara is preparing to snarl something in response, but Kakashi continues on, unaware of the storm brewing in front of him, “before I ruin you, too.”

Madara curls his fingers tighter and swoops down to hover over Kakashi’s face, their lips almost brushing.

“What was that?” Madara asks, low and dangerous.

Kakashi plows on, ghosts behind his eyes. (Madara wants to claw them to pieces, but they’re dead and gone, worlds away.) “I know you think we fixed things, but nothing I touch ever gets fixed. I can’t imagine how it will end worse, but it will. There’s going to be enough blood and fire to fill oceans by the time this time is done with me.”

Madara doesn’t shiver.

It isn’t a prophecy.

He bites the bitter, awful lies from Kakashi’s mouth, smothers them down to ash and dust, lets them die in this bare room, soon to be forgotten.

It’s blood and fire.

It’s all the sweetness Madara never knew he was missing until this man with too familiar eyes cut a tear in the universe and slipped through.

(They fixed things.)

(They’ll burn together.)

As Madara carries Kakashi home, the moon glares down at them, and the future waits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Things you said when you were drunk.


	7. ragnarok (all our gods are dead) (minato/kushina)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is legacy?

_oh young gods_

_born burning and you never learned the word “ashes”_

 

The call her the Demon-Wife. She steps and—firestorms bloom.

Konoha: the Nice Village. (Konoha: the Village of Monsters.)

Because only the strong can afford to show mercy.

 

_you sang a song of peace_

_with a blade in your other hand_

 

When they are ruined and gone—Senju and Uchiha alike—she remains.

Tsunade is a sweet girl, but she is a Senju through and through, barely a breath of Uzumaki in her bones.

And so Mito closes her eyes and sends for a girl.

And she prays to gods who have never given her anything she did not take that it will be the right girl.

(Across the village, a boy with eyes too blue dreams of the future and shapes dreams into being.)

 

_called it compassion_

_(didn’t see how fear turned to rage)_

 

“Minato?” Kushina mumbles, hand outstretched from under the covers of their bed.

Minato wants to wrap himself up in her—warmth and softness—and hide together from the world.

“What happened? Is it going to be war?”

He pulls off his clothes, dropping them as he walks across the moon-streaked floorboards, climbing under the lifted covers to join her in the nude.

He cups her face in his hands: still the best thing he’s ever seen, made even more so by the way he knows so intimately now the way her eyes crinkle when she laughs or the way her mouth tastes when she’s just finished off a tub of ripe strawberries or the way she looks when she’s caught up in her own pleasure.

“Yeah,” Minato sighs. “It’s going to be war.”

Kushina nods and kisses him, and Minato lets himself sink into the plush selfishness of it, lets the rest of the world drop away.

“It’s going to be ugly,” he breathes when she pulls away.

Kushina’s mouth twists into a bitter smile.

“War always is.”

 

_or maybe you did_

_and you just thought you’d have time for forgiveness_

 

In Iwa, they say that War walks the world, shining and golden, the Leaf etched on his brow. War comes like lightning on a blue sky day, and armies fall in his wake,

In Iwa, they say run, for War has no mercy.

(In Iwa, they don’t dare speak of Her, lest the echo of her name summon her.

They did not know before, that under even pressure and heat, even rock melts.

But they know now. Oh, do they know.

Don’t run from Her, they say in Iwa, for there is no hope of running.

There is no hope.)

 

_whatever your blindness,_

_you never counted on the measure of time_

 

Kushina is awake in the night.

The moon is swollen as it pours through the window, and so is she.

“Hey, baby,” she sings to her stomach, “we need our sleep.”

But she feels restless, something under her skin.

At least Minato is sleeping. The bruises under his eyes are too black; he needs it.

He carries too much.

He’s just a man.

She doesn’t dare card her hand through his hair in case it wakes him, and Kushina aches with the need to touch him, make sure that he’s real and with her.

Regardless of her care, something of her unease creeps into the room, and Minato stirs slowly to waking.

And then she notices the way his breathing is tightly controlled, tight in his chest.

“Hey, my love,” Kushina croons, trailing a finger down his cheek. “I’m here, we’re safe.”

Minato comes awake all at once, blue eyes closed and then clear.

“Kushina,” he sighs, reaching for her.

Kushina falls into him, and Minato buries his face in her neck.

His pulse thrums through her, too fast.

“Hey,” she says. “Hey.”

“You’re okay?”

“I’m okay.”

They readjust, leaving room for the baby cradled between them.

Minato smoothes a thoughtful hand over the curve of her stomach.

“My nightmares are usually about losing you,” he tells her and the moon, “they always have been. And now they’re about losing the both of you.”

Kushina wants to reassure him otherwise, but she knows exactly what they are risking, exactly what a risk they are.

“I’m here,” she says instead. “We’re both right here.”

She just hopes that the day never comes when she cannot take him in her hands and kiss him softly, like they are not creatures carved for killing.

She just hopes that it’s enough.

 

_let it all slip right through your fingers_

_should have held on tighter_

 

As Minato seals himself and half the Kyūbi away, he wonders if he will find part of Kushina there too.

His hands are covered in blood, and somewhere distant, his child is wailing.

It’s a wonder that he can hear it over the wailing in his own head.

 

_oh young gods,_

_you lived like you would live forever_

 

Namikaze Minato’s face is carved into a mountain and his name is stricken from the history books.

Uzumaki Kushina’s face becomes memory, becomes dust.

Their son grows up, and wouldn’t know how to recognize his parents in the mirror.

 

_a thing you learned too late:_

_even stars burn out_

 

The called her the Demon-Wife. She stepped and—firestorms bloom.

Konoha: the Nice Village. (Konoha: the Village of Monsters.)

Because only the strong can afford to show mercy.

And yet—

They call her son a hero and he smiles at a world that tries to break him for the sin of mercy.

He steps and—something like hope blooms.

 

_(young gods dying_

_for the hope of peace to grow in the caverns of their bones)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** My nightmares are usually about losing you.


	8. glass shard hearts (sakura/karin)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> angry girls with glass shards where their hearts were once kept. fighting the world that promised them kindness even as it drove the knife into their backs.

 

“I could kill you, you know,” a voice chases Karin through her dreams, through the heavy fog that occupies the space between life and death. “It would be easy. No one would ever know that I’d done it.”

Karin wishes the voice would go through with it.

She’s sick of living.

It’s never brought her any joy.

_Do it_ , she wants to plead, but she’s too far under, her mouth half a world away.

“But I won’t,” the voice says.

Karin could weep, but her eyes aren’t her own.

Where she is, she has no eyes.

“Just remember that, when you wake up,” the voice threatens. “I could have.”

 

 

Not the first time she thinks she is about to die, but the most memorable, Death’s face is kind with green fire burning, burning, burning in her hands and eyes and all the world in flame.

Not the first time, but what she is sure will be the last, Karin closes her eyes to soft petals falling.

 

 

“Shit,” says an all too familiar voice.

Karin drops the weapon she’d picked up and goes back to patching up her unconscious teammate.

The pale bastard doesn’t deserve it, but she’s a Konoha nin now, and she doesn’t get to let teammates she doesn’t like die for a lack of timely care.

“Fucking damnit. Shit. Goddamned–”

“My, Haruno, I didn’t know Konoha’s golden girl had such a mouth on her,” Karin says, only half-paying attention to her needling as the bit of bone she’s currently mostly occupied with mending is particularly tricky.

When she finally pulls the rib shards from where they’ve been embedded in the lung tissue and looks up, Karin blinks.

Haruno is currently, apparently, impossibly growing back most of her left leg.

“What.”

Haruno looks down at her leg, following Karin’s gaze. “Oh. Right. No, not my leg, I mean the ambush we walked in on. When I find out who is responsible for this clusterfuck, I’m going to ruin them.”

Her pretty mouth is twisted in a snarl and her fingers are twitching, as if itching for something to tear. (A heart out of a chest, perhaps. A spine from a body.)

“Are you ok?”

Karin blinks again.

“Excuse me?”

Haruno roles her eyes. “Are you hurt, idiot?”

Karin sucks on the inside of her cheek, unsure of how to respond. Admitting weakness has never served her well in the past.

But this new life she’s awoken to, been chained to, surrendered herself to is supposed to be kinder, supposedly.

“No,” Karin lies.

Haruno stares right through her, green light filling her hands.

Her eyes are just as green, and all too knowing.

She shouldn’t know.

She can’t.

Haruno purses her lips. “It isn’t weakness, you know, to ask for help from your team.”

Karin lifts her chin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m sure you don’t.” Haruno crouches down beside Karin to look over their unconscious teammate. “I’ve got the rest of this, you take a break. And double check your genjutsu on the window, I walked right through it.”

Haruno’s thigh is warm and steady against her own.

Karin stands up stiffly, blood welling in her mouth, and stalks over to the window to double check her traps.

As she fiddles with the trigger mechanism, she passes a hand over her hip.

She frowns.

She could have sworn her femur was broken.

But it’s only bruised.

 

 

Haruno’s back is rigid and she looks sharp enough to snap.

Karin should keep walking.

It’s none of her business.

But the gates of Konoha are gaping in front of her, and Haruno has never looked smaller.

“They’ll be back.” The sound of her own voice startles her.

Haruno laughs.

It isn’t a pretty sound. The bitterness shocks Karin; she didn’t think the other woman was capable of such an ugly sound.

“That isn’t the point,” Haruno says.

Karin stares out at the endless forest and the sunlit path.

She doesn’t understand.

But as she stands shoulder to shoulder with this woman, she breathes deeply.

It tastes of leaves and sunshine and iron and spun sugar.

Maybe she doesn’t have to understand.

Karin stands shoulder to shoulder with Haruno Sakura, so far behind the backs of legends, and for the first time in months, she breathes easily.

(She could have left it well enough alone—it’s none of her business, after all—but something about that lone figure, a pillar against the too blue sky, called to her. Karin looks at Haruno Sakura and sees something familiar.

She just doesn’t know yet if she hates her for it.)

 

 

The first time they fuck, Haruno’s eyes are bloodshot and she’s shaking from exhaustion and the remnants of adrenaline still screaming through her system.

Karin sucks on her fingers with a vicious twist of her tongue and is half surprised she can’t taste the iron that should be trapped under the other healer’s nails.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she hisses at Sakura as she presses her weight into her, pinning Sakura against the wall, trying to keep her in the present. “You did everything you could.”

Sakura bites her on the shoulder. “It wasn’t enough.”

Karin laughs. “It never is,” she says, and then she kisses her and kisses her and kisses her, as if the burn of her mouth could be enough to keep away the night.

It never is.

This is not a hurt Karin could heal even if she could touch.

 

 

“I’ve got you,” Sakura hums.

Or, well, those aren’t the words of the lullaby she is singing low in Karin’s ear, but they’re to the same effect.

Sakura’s hands draw wide circles across Karin’s ribs, trying to soothe her to waking, trying to fight off the grasp of the nightmares catching at her edges, pulling her down.

Karin swallows against the screams trapped in her throat.

“I’ve got you,” Sakura swears.

Her hands are sure and bruising.

Karin sinks into the weight of them.

“I’m awake,” she says.

Sakura doesn’t stop singing.

“You’re going to leave me one day.”

The singing cuts out.

“Never,” Sakura snarls, fingers grasping at Karin’s chin, pulling her face up, forcing her to meet Sakura’s gaze.

The night is dark and aflame.

“Never,” Sakura repeats. “Your life is mine. You’re mine. And I’m yours. There’s no going back on that now.”

Karin wraps her own fingers around Sakura’s wrist, anchoring her grip instead of pulling it away.

The metal band around her finger is cold and sharp and all too real, and all too fragile.

Karin refuses to close her eyes and give into her own worst demons.

Refuses to give into herself and the girl she once was.

Sakura hovers above her, a flame in the dark.

She’s the only thing Karin can see.

“No going back,” Karin echoes.

Sakura swallows the promise and all is soft petals and her eyes fluttering shut.

 

 

Karin looks at a woman with pink hair across the span of a battlefield and the ashes of their girlhoods.

“Oh,” she thinks, “so this is death.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Two spitfires who only show their vulnerability to each other. For Femslash February 2018.


	9. in media res (shisui/sakura)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tonight's the night that Sakura is going to lay it all on the line. Either Sasuke loves her, too, or there's no point in any of it.

Standing in the Uchiha family’s kitchen trying not to cry, Sakura is hard pressed to decide what exactly about the whole situation is the most mortifying.

Based on the slow-dawning horror on his face, Shisui doesn’t know either.

“Sakura,” he finally manages–-and in the cruel part of her brain that isn’t also being swallowed by her mortification, Sakura can’t help but think he looks like an idiot with his hands in the air, undecided if he’ll reach out and touch her or not-–”I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

Abruptly, Sakura decides that the most mortifying thing about this whole situation is that Shisui probably really is sorry. Because everyone knows. Everyone who has ever met her probably knows that Sakura is in love Sasuke.

Except for Sasuke, of course.

And Shisui just walked into the middle of–-after seven years and more pep-talks than she cares to count and sleepless nights and tear-stained diaries and mumbled mistakes and drunk unheard confessions-–Sakura finally having the courage to declare her love, unequivocally.

This time, she had promised herself. This time, she’d really do it. And if Sasuke, once he knew, didn’t reciprocate? Well. Five years was a long time. Sakura deserves to move forward, even if what she wanted to deserve was Sasuke.

She wasn’t expecting Shisui to walk in just as she managed to finish off her long, rambled explanation to a bored and barely following Sasuke with a blurted out, “And I love you!”

Walking into the kitchen to let Sasuke know that it was his turn to take a controller in their Mario Party tournament, Shisui certainly wasn’t expecting it either.

Shisui’s uncertain hands finally find her elbows and Sakura really does start to cry from the embarrassment as he holds her together.

“Aw,” Shisui says again, “I’m so sorry, Sakura.”

Sakura lets him pull her into his chest, not too proud to accept the comfort. (She doesn’t have any pride left to her, not after tonight.)

Sakura presses her open mouth to his breastbone, stifling the sobs trapped behind her teeth.

She’s going to cover Shisui in tears and snot and saliva, and Sakura cries even harder because she’s such an embarrassment that she can’t stand it.

No wonder Sasuke turned on his heel at her declaration and ran, really. Sakura would run away from herself, too, if she could.

Shisui wraps his arms around her, and presses his hands to the small of her back and the nape of her neck, pulling her as close as he can, apparently uncaring of mess she’s making of his shirt and, just, of the situation in general.

In the living room, someone is swearing about blue shells and betrayal.

“Aw, Sakura,” Shisui finally says, “I’m sorry. You deserve better.”

Sakura sniffles.

She’s known Shisui forever. Ever since Naruto dragged Sakura over to Sasuke’s house to work on a group project for Mr. Hatake’s English class when they were thirteen. He’s just always been on the periphery of her world: convincing Itachi to get into trouble and sometimes helping to get Sakura and the boys out of it. But somehow, even as they got older and age didn’t matter so much, Shisui has always kept his distance from her even as people like Itachi and Konan became her friends.

To be honest, Sakura has always thought he disliked her a little bit. Not obviously so, Shisui has always been too kind for that, but any time Sakura’s found herself in conversation with him, just the two of them, Shisui has deftly manoeuvred himself out of it.

“Can you blame him?” Sakura mumbles into his chest. “I’m a disaster. I don’t want me, I don’t know why anyone else would.”

Shisui freezes abruptly under her hold at this, and Sakura’s mortification deepens.

She pulls away from him, trying to distance herself, trying to put some distance between them because Shisui has been kinder to her than she deserves and Sakura shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t have imposed on him any more than she already has.

Shisui stops her flight as easily as his fingers carefully grasping her by the chin.

Sakura refuses to look at him, even as he tugs her chin up.

“Sakura,” Shisui says, “would you please look at me?”

Sakura turns her gaze up to look at his ear.

It’s a nice ear, with soft black curls tucked behind it that Sakura has always wanted to run her fingers through, just to see if they’re as soft as they look.

Shisui shifts his grip on her chin slightly, and his thumb comes to rest in the hollow just below the swell of Sakura’s bottom lip. “Look me in the eyes, sweetheart. So you know I’m telling the truth.”

Sakura squeezes her eyes shut, takes a breath, and meets Shisui's steady gaze.

He is velvet soft and considering and almost enough to make Sakura start crying again.

“I have always found,” Shisui tells her, none of his usual mischief in his voice, just raw unfiltered honesty, “that you are extraordinarily easy to love, Sakura.”

Sakura inhales sharply. “I don’t understand,” she says, even as she doesn’t look away, doesn’t pull away, understanding dawning under almost of decade of misconceptions and missed connections.

“Could you bear one more courageous declaration tonight, do you think?” Shisui asks.

Sakura licks her lips, forgetting for a moment about Shisui’s grip on her chin, and her tongue catches the tip of his thumb.

Sakura’s breath catches as she sees Shisui’s pupils suddenly flare.

He isn’t looking at her with just softness, now.

“Sakura,” Shisui says–-a question–-from where he is suddenly hovering over her.

Sakura inhales the taste of her name on his lips.

She leans forward, and meets the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** shisaku, the big damn kiss + interrupted declaration of love


	10. verklempt: completely and utterly overcome with emotion (sakura/ino/sai)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All Sakura has ever truly wanted is to be loved for exactly what she is.

“I understand this is much to process. If you like, I have several useful books–”

“Sai,” Ino says, between kisses to kiss the tears on Sakura’s cheeks away, “babe, I love you, but this is not the time.”

“Ah,” Sai says. “I see. We should instead offer Sakura physical comfort and reassurance, so that she can have tangible proof that our declaration of love was honest and meant.”

Sakura laughs wetly at that.

Ino kisses that, too, drinking down Sakura’s grief and desperation and the oceans inside her that threaten to sweep her away.

Sai picks up her hand from where it is sitting useless on the couch and presses a soft kiss to the inside of her wrist that catches her breath like a hook under her ribs.

It is hard to remember the taste of loneliness, like an unkempt garden growing in her lungs, when they are pressed close, holding her like she is something fragile and worthy of care.

“We love you,” they promise her, with the way they card the hair back from her face or the way they cradle her cheekbones or the way they press her down into the couch, twinned weights, like the sun and moon, pulling her between their gravity, holding her up from drowning.

Sakura gives herself over to it.

“Let us love you,” they plead.

No one has ever asked before. Not in any way that mattered.

Expected and took, sure. Sakura’s heart ripped from her chest and squeezed, yes. But not this. Not asking. Not offering.

Sakura doesn’t know what it is to be loved.

She is willing to learn it from them, though. The two of them.

She can’t breathe for how much she’s wanted them and their love, like a wounded animal circling a fire, desperate for the warmth and terrified of being burned.

They give themselves to her, give each other to her, and oh, Sakura has never been so willing to let the waves of her desperation and her weakness take her away.

Ino and Sai drown with her.

All is gasping and being lost.

All is breathing and being found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** verklempt


	11. pyrrhic: won at too great a cost (naruto/sasuke/sakura)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She loves them. She'd burn down everything that they have kept for themselves if it meant starting back at the beginning.

Sakura can almost feel the unrelenting sun beating through the rock to find them in the cave where they’ve been hiding the last several days. Even through the darkness and the mildew, she’d swear she could feel its heat burning through her.

She still remembers the last time she saw the sun, even though it’s been years.

It’s too bad they were running for their lives and she didn’t get the chance to savour that last sunrise.

Purple means only loss, now.

When she can find flowers, she’ll braid the purple ones into her hair, let the heavy weight of that crown press down on her forehead in reminder. Not that she needs reminding. Every day is a reminder.

Naruto snuffles in his sleep, pressing closer to Sasuke’s chest. Asleep and half-hidden by their shared embrace, she can almost imagine them as children, again.

There were a few times, Sakura on sentry shift and the boys asleep in their bedrolls, where she would giggle with Kakashi over the way that Naruto, inevitably, would stretch his way over to the closest source of warmth. Often it was the campfire, and Naruto had more than a few close encounters with a head full of hair on fire, but when it was too precarious for a fire, he’d squirm over to Sasuke and press close.

Sasuke was never very impressed when it was morning.

Now, though, Sasuke keeps an arm swung over Naruto’s hip to keep him close, like he’s afraid to lose him.

Sakura’s attention snaps to the chakra web she’s woven around them, relaxing only when she determines that the slight fluctuation in her fine lines was a mouse skittering across the very edge of the net, some several kilometres away. She still tags it, though, to watch.

Sometimes mice aren’t mice forever.

And sometimes mice aren’t just mice.

She admires them in the dim light given off by Naruto’s ‘moon rocks’: fist sized stones etched with seals that slowly turn the chemical bonds to visible light, breaking the matter apart. (He thinks the name is hilarious. Sakura and Sasuke disagree.)

Black and blond. Alive and beautiful and hers.

She could walk over to them and kiss them.

Instead, Sakura sits at the centre of her web, waiting and watchful, and hates them.

Oh, she loves them.

She’ll die for them, in the end. She knows this with the same certainty that she knows they love her too, that they’ll never love her enough, that they’ll weep when she is dead but that as long as they have each other, they will survive.

Sakura sits in the dim light, far from the reach of the sun or the goddess who hunts them or the burning world that is much too late to save, and rots there, in her hatred, in her grief.

Maybe there is a universe out there where Naruto does not choose Sasuke over the world, where Sasuke never gives him the choice. But they are here, instead.

She weighs the gold of the ring on her finger, a more delicate band than Naruto and Sasuke’s matching ones. All three are carved with the same promises. Sakura wonders if theirs are as heavy to wear as hers.

Sakura loves them.

She would have killed them, if she’d known that they’d let the world burn.

There are old scrolls spread out around her, stolen from the ruins of Uzushiogakure in the first months of the end of the world.

Sakura has gotten used to reading by dim light.

It’s their legacy around her, Naruto and Sasuke’s. Kushina’s heritage and Minato’s experiments and Itachi’s duty.

None of this is Sakura’s.

All of this is Sakura’s. Hers by right. The three of them bound together.

Sakura has always loved them.

It’s never been enough.

She spins the ring on her finger, and thinks about beginnings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt: pyrrhic**


End file.
